Uba: How Free Is Too Free ?

[Noesdeayer]

About a week ago the Argentine Congress rejected once again a proposal to charge a fee to attend the University of Buenos Aires.Also,there will be no entrance exam for public universities.According to Adriana Puiggros who sponsored the law ,having graduated from secondary school will be sufficient.Some may recall the hassle a few years ago when fewer than 100 out of several hundred applicants for La Plata's U.'s Medical School passed the entrance test.The decision was made to give the test again.However now,it has been eliminated completely.Quite natuarally,Argentina is free to run their public universities the way they see fit.However,I am a legal foreign resident a taxpayer and an Argentine retiree.So,when they start talking about funding from ANSES,my ears perk up.
Ms.Puigarros feels that funding should be done only by taxation.But what type of taxes and on whom?She also says that the "·eliteization" of the university must be avoided.Silly me,I always thought that an exam was an opportunity to show what you knew not what you didn't know.i guess I was wrong.When i was in Cuba in 2005 at a gathering of local health professionals.A woman told me of her disappointment that her son had not done well on the exam to study medicine and that he had been given the "camillero"-stretcher bearer" catagory.I said that maybe he could study up and take the test again.She looked at me strangely as if ,as the Argentine saying goes,I was "un sapo de otro pozo"-"a toad from another pond"-No hay segunda vuelta".-"There is no second chance"..And the Cuban revolution knew a thing or two about abolishing the elite.Maybe Ms.Puigarros could learn something from them.

 

[ElQueso]

Yeah, I saw this about the entrance exams the other day. I didn't notice about the proposal to charge a fee.

This whole concept of making people "equal" doesn't work. There's no such thing as getting rid of "elitism". Elitism will exist within human societies at least for the foreseeable future and attempts to get rid of it by making every one "equal", no matter one's abilities, just isn't going to do anything but whatever stupidity is already arising from such a bizarre concept. In fact, it reminds of people who try to make laws that actually counter reality or the laws of physics or against theories supported by science.

Elitism is relative. There is no political party called "elite". Elitists are people who think themselves better than everyone else and want to control how the others live. Government supports elitism by the fact of their very existence. After all, who is not elite if not those who sit in power over us and tell us how to live, how to spend money, and what to be worried about?

But aside from that little bit of weirdness that those in control don't consider themselves "elite", someone can't just make a law that makes everyone equal. The best we can hope for is to give equal opportunities.

Removing entrance exams does not do this. With three girls in school, I've seen quite a few things about the school system here. One thing that is not really taught is self-reliance and how to learn. In fact, what seems to me to be taught above all else is how to get around the requirements to actually know something in order to pass a class. I won't get into everything here as to why I say that, but if anyone wants to know, I have plenty of fodder for that opinion.

So kids who graduate high school here are supposed to be prepared for university. Not.

Things like this, these populist concepts that deny human nature in their desire for "justice" and "equality" are going to keep Argentina down. I can imagine that the next step is going to be that you can't fail students either (you already get so many chances in school now to repeatedly pass materials that have been failed) - that wouldn't be "fair", after all. So now public universities here are going to be dumbed down like the high schools already are, to the point where someone graduating from a public university won't be anywhere near prepared to enter the job market.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

The exams create an university for the elites who can pay for proper education during high school.

The UBA system teachs you to study plus to deal with difficulties and compensate a prior bad education.

It does mean that there are not admission test, in fact, you have about 5 of them during the career. They are called filter subjects. Plus you have to approve the CBC.

The fact is that a lot of people fails but they are better work force than when they left highschool.

That is why professionals are affordable.

 

[nikad]

The exams create an university for the elites who can pay for proper education during high school.

The UBA system teachs you to study plus to deal with difficulties and compensate a prior bad education.

It does mean that there are not admission test, in fact, you have about 5 of them during the career. They are called filter subjects. Plus you have to approve the CBC.

The fact is that a lot of people fails but they are better work force than when they left highschool.

That is why professionals are affordable.

The government is responsible for the poor getting crap education in high school in the first place ( talking about public school system here that was once excellent ). How about they do it right?

 

[ElQueso]

Exactly my feelings Nikad. You don't fix a problem by legislating away legal blocks to further study, you make the system better so that those who go through the system come out better.

I wouldn't have expected any different answer from Bajo than the one he gave. Baho, as a lover of the current regime, doesn't even realize that he is now one of "the elite". He believes the propaganda without even thinking about it.

Students who enter university with no skills, barely reading and writing, unable to do math, unable to to write monographs, etc, are going to be at an extreme disadvantage upon entering. The universities that now have to teach their students most of the basics (and yeah, I see that happening...not) will have to figure out how to spend more money for programs to teach high school subjects to these students on top of the regular course work for those who can do it. Or pass them whether they have the skills or not, like the high schools are doing.

As I understand from talking to people who attend UBA (or whose parents have children attending), classes are already over-crowded, money is already lacking, etc. Where are the resources going to magically appear from for the extra required for people entering a public school? They're not there now for crying out loud.

Of course, let's make things "equal". In Crinstina's case, making things equal means "let's drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator" instead of bringing everyone else up to the highest common denominator. It's much easier and looks better to ignorant people who believe everything she says anyway.

It's a whole lot easier to just "do away with" entrance exams than do something like, say, create a new department that will help fix the problems of students who can't pass the entrance exams before they enroll in a school of higher learning. But of course, that would make the problem more high-profile when it doesn't work, wouldn't it?

Por dios.

 

[Ries]

armchair theory.

If you actually know anyone who has been to UBA or other state universities lately, you know that getting in is, well, only the beginning.
I have several friends who teach at UBA- and they assign their students projects and requirements far more challenging than the USA state university my son just graduated from.
And, at UBA, they dont hold your hand- you sink, or swim, on your own.
Far from mollycoddling the students, anyone who makes it thru UBA and gets a degree has an education that is quite respectable.
I have met many people who spent five, or even ten years, getting a degree from UBA, precisely because its tougher, and requires more initiative than US schools do.
I know that in some of the programs my friends teach in, they start out with 700 kids, and 4 or 5 years later, 50 finish the program.

I think this is a good thing, and I also think it should be open to anyone to attempt- ie, free.
The result is far fewer rubber stamp degrees, and a better general level of education, even among people who drop out.

 

[nativexpat]

The government is responsible for the poor getting crap education in high school in the first place ( talking about public school system here that was once excellent ). How about they do it right?

Nikad Presidente!

 

[ben]

armchair theory.

If you actually know anyone who has been to UBA or other state universities lately, you know that getting in is, well, only the beginning.
I have several friends who teach at UBA- and they assign their students projects and requirements far more challenging than the USA state university my son just graduated from.
And, at UBA, they dont hold your hand- you sink, or swim, on your own.
Far from mollycoddling the students, anyone who makes it thru UBA and gets a degree has an education that is quite respectable.
I have met many people who spent five, or even ten years, getting a degree from UBA, precisely because its tougher, and requires more initiative than US schools do.
I know that in some of the programs my friends teach in, they start out with 700 kids, and 4 or 5 years later, 50 finish the program.

I think this is a good thing, and I also think it should be open to anyone to attempt- ie, free.
The result is far fewer rubber stamp degrees, and a better general level of education, even among people who drop out.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the above is true.

Is abolishing scholastic - not financial, scholastic - barriers to entry going to help students in an institution where "you sink, or swim, on your own"?
Sounds, to me, that very few students that per their academic level can't even get in, will be able to get out successfully, particularly if the institution works as described above.
Unless, as suggested by ElQueso, the main skill they major in is learning how to sidestep some landmines. Argentina-style.

 

[Ries]

I believe it will, yes. I know, personally several argentines who were born poor, and, who were able to get degrees, because its free. I know, personally, a bunch of very smart, but poor, US citizens who live in the USA, who were never able to go to college, and who are still poor.

I also know people who were drug addicts, or just slackers, as teenagers, and, miraculously, grew up. and then went back to college, and made something of themselves.
Which is far easier when you are not having to pay 40,000 dollars a year to do it.

I have a friend in Buenos Aires who is a single mom, who got her degree from UBA, and has a small business now. Again, if she had had to work a job, to pay tuition, AND take care of her daughter, most likely she would never have gotten her degree.

There are thousands of stories like this- poor people who simply cannot work a full time job, take the bus in 2 hours each way to school, and also attend school full time.
They benefit from the free tuition.

Another thing this same government has done- in the last five years or so, there have been something like a dozen new campuses opened up of government colleges and universities, many in the poor suburbs of Buenos Aires. This, like the free tuition, is a targeted effort to give poor people a chance at education.

Education benefits society, by making more workers able to earn more, and, not coincidentally, pay more taxes.

I am always a bit surprised when people are against education- it lowers crime rates, birth rates, and in just about every measurable way, improves society for all its members.

 

[thorsten]

It would be way easier not to mix up the two separate issues:
1. Providing free education at universities
2. Allowing universities to select students using skill-based entry tests

If one considers that every capable person who wants to study should be able to independent of his social background, free education is a good way to go - and it works in a lot of countries.
Not allowing universities to perform entry tests is stupid in my opinion. If everyone has a similar set of skills from basic education, this doesn't discriminate anyone based on their social background, but only selects people with the better skill set. The fact Ries mentioned ("I know that in some of the programs my friends teach in, they start out with 700 kids, and 4 or 5 years later, 50 finish the program.") is basically showing how inefficient a system without proper selection is: if less than 10% finish their studies, it basically means that 90% of students just wasted a few semester and thus education funds were wasted. If there is an issue that the pre-university education is so bad that it people lack the basic skills required for university, then it should be fixed there as nikad said. In my opinion, the term "equality" in this context should be interpreted as 2 similarly smart persons should have similar chances to get their degree, no matter if they are coming from a poor or a rich family. But it doesn't mean that a person who can't [background=rgb(255, 253, 248)]add two numbers should have a right that the university accepts him as a math student...[/background]